ANSWERING THE CALL

A Gaston County teen is joining 15 other young men to study toward considering a vocation in the Catholic priesthood through a new college seminary program.

The St. Joseph College Seminary in the Diocese of Charlotte opened a year ago inviting men age 18 and up to receive the necessary undergraduate education and guidance to prepare for the priesthood. In partnership with Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, it is the only such college seminary program in the southeast between northern Virginia and southern Florida. It was established to help attract more men to the priesthood to help lead the some 340,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Charlotte.

“All this stuff that we have going on relative to the breakdown of marriage and promiscuity and what have you, that’s what’s corrupting, ultimately, the capacity for a normal man to be a normal man,” said Fr. Matthew Kauth, director of the college seminary. “So we’re just trying to rebuild that. Whether most of those guys go on to the priesthood in the end doesn’t really matter. I just want to help build good solid men that are going to be good Catholic men in the community or good priests.”

The seminary had an inaugural class of seven men, with another nine set to begin this August. The oldest seminarian will be 23 and the youngest, 18-year-old Andrew Templeton of Gastonia.

READ: Q&A with Andrew Templeton, who discusses his calling to the priesthood

Seminarians — those who are enrolled in the program — spend four years working toward a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Belmont Abbey College, taking courses on the Belmont campus in philosophy, Latin and other subjects. All seminarians live together on the campus of St. Ann Church in Charlotte.

They would then move on to a “major” seminary program where they work toward their master’s degree in theology and receive more specific priestly formation, learning to say mass, preaching, and doing sacraments, for example.

Traditionally, seminarians can’t be ordained until they are at least 25 years old.

Under the guidance of teachers, Benedictine monks, priests and others on campus and in the Diocese, the college seminary aims to encapsulate four different areas of a young man’s formation: human, pastoral, intellectual and ritual formation. It all begins with a 10-day “media fast,” where seminarians are forbidden from using their cellphones and other electronic devices, while learning to communicate with each other only in Latin.

“One of the hardest things is to get them divorced from that and then to be able to come back at those things and use them in a responsible manner,” said Kauth. “What I noticed last year when we did it is that when they could have their phones again, no one actually picked them up.”

Kauth says breaking such addictions and learning to resist the world’s sinful temptations are all part of the priesthood. It’s a calling to which he personally was drawn as he dabbled whether to play football at the Naval Academy after high school. Though he says he also had a girlfriend whom he wanted to marry, a nice car and money in his pocket, it all left him feeling empty and unsatisfied.

“Then, I had an encounter with a really fine priest and I was wondering why he was happy having nothing that I had, and I wasn’t happy? So I began to study the lives of the saints and I began to pray and I found that I want this, I want to give myself here,” Kauth said, of the priesthood.

You can reach Eric Wildstein at 704-869-1828 or Twitter.com/TheGazetteEric.